Why should you study history?

 

You may answer: to simply learn basic facts about people and events from the past. To an extent, this is true. Facts are important. However, basic facts are only a small part of a tremendous whole. This whole contains not only facts, but concepts, beliefs, values, themes, and ideas which altogether influence today’s America. Every person, every place, and every event from your past has a direct bearing on your present and your future. In order to understand the world you live in today, you need to understand how it got where it is. People faced many obstacles, and made many mistakes, but, every action they took was a piece of the whole -- building blocks of today’s world. In addition, in order to respect the beliefs and values of the world’s diverse populations, you need to know their places in history. However, to do this and to be an informed citizen, you need to understand the whole history of the world; and the whole history is not just a bundle of unrelated facts. It is a collection of facts, beliefs, concepts, needs, and desires which have shaped your present and will build your future.

 

 

REMEMBER:

In a 1983 educational report, A Nation At Risk, the National Commission on Excellence
in Education issued stern advice to students:

"You forfeit your chance for life at its fullest when you withhold your best effort in learning. When you give only the minimum to learning, you receive only the minimum in return... in the end it is YOUR work that determines how much and how well you learn."
Ask the best of yourself, until it becomes an unthinking character trait. You will go far.

 

Here's a photo ofFather Shott and I as Thomas and Martha Jefferson: